Tuesday, 8 February 2011

The Truth about The Cuts

Surely oh SURELY no-one can really believe that any of these cuts are right. In my view they are

Unnecessary – economist after economist say there are alternativesLet’s repeat something I said before – tackling benefit fraud could reclaim £1billion, but tackling tax evasion £18billion.

Unfair – those already struggling to make ends meet will find it even worse, maybe impossible. From April tax & benefit changes will mean all households affected will lose up to £200 a year. And here’s a ‘gem’ – it’s being proposed that anyone unemployed for over a year will have their housing benefit cut by 10%. Scrooge is alive and well, it seems.

Unhelpful – far from supporting the economy, in the long term the cuts risk failing it. Many small businesses just wont be able to carry on and once gone they are gone for good, and when (if?) the good times roll in they will be hard to replace. Small businesses form around 95% of the employers in Wales, with about 60% of the workforce. What’s going to happen if lots of them go bust?!

And possibly the most outrageous proposals of them all are those where the government is in effect stealing our money by the changes they want to introduce to pensions.

If they go ahead these will mean

Public Services pensions cut

War pensions cut

State pensions for 5million men & women deferred for up to two years

Will David Cameron have to work longer for his pension? Will George Osborne have to struggle for money when he retires? Funnily enough I’m not offering prizes for the answers to either of those!Les